The present disclosure relates generally to telephone headsets and, more particularly to a telephone headset with a “presence” indicator means thereon for outputting a user's presence status, thereby signaling to other persons the user's availability and/or willingness to communicate face-to-face.
A telephone headset includes an earpiece, including one or more speakers, and a microphone. The earpiece is typically held in place over or near the ear of the user, for example, with an over-the-head band or an ear hook. The microphone is commonly located close to the user's mouth by placement at the end of a boom extending from the earpiece.
Telephone headsets free the user's hands and offer greater comfort and efficiency over conventional telephone handsets. As such, headsets find widespread use in call centers and many other business and professional office settings where telephones are used frequently or for extended periods.
One drawback of headset use in a work environment is that other persons cannot determine whether a user who has donned a headset is available to talk, or on an active telephone call and therefore unavailable to talk. Prior art headsets have addressed this drawback by providing an indicator light, for example, at the end of the microphone boom or elsewhere on the headset, which provides a visual indication to other persons when the telephone headset is in use. Such prior art systems typically monitor the telephone line to determine whether the telephone line is in use (off-hook) or idle (on-hook).
For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,210,791 discloses a telephone headset on-line indicator that determines the on-line or off-hook condition by monitoring the voltage potential across the transmitting lines between the headset and the base unit. An LED on the microphone boom is illuminated when the headset is in use. U.S. Pat. No. 5,359,647 discloses a headset having an LED in-use indicator on the microphone boom which is activated to indicate that the headset is in use by amplification of the audio signal across the transmission lines. U.S. Pat. No. 8,209,441 discloses a telephone headset for a softphone application having an LED on-line indicator wherein the on-line status is detected by monitoring the host to detect a request for transmit data from the host based on a signaling protocol associated with the host port and independent of the softphone application software.
Network communication systems have recently included the ability to send and receive so-called “presence information” which conveys the availability and/or willingness of users of the network communication system to communicate with other users of the network communication system. Such presence information is advantageous to persons who are logged on to the network communications system with a networked device and provides such logged on users with an indication of the user's willingness to communicate over the communication network, e.g., via an instant messaging application. However, providing network presence information of a user to other users operating a device connected to the network does not address the problem of alerting persons in the vicinity of the headset user, such as someone wishing to speak to the headset user in-person, as to the headset user's availability or willingness to communicate, e.g. face-to-face.
Accordingly, the current disclosure provides an improved headset for computer telephony that provides a visual indication of the headset user's presence information or status, and which overcomes the above problems and others.